>The differences between the pagan Christs and the Christs himself is much what we should expect to find. The pagan stories are all about someone dying and rising, either every year, or else nobody knows where and nobody knows when.>The Christian story is about a historical personage, whose execution can be dated pretty accurately, under a named Roman magistrate, and with whom the society that He founded is in a continuous relation down to the present day. It is not the difference between falsehood and truth. It is the difference between a real event on one hand and dim dreams or premonitions of that same event on the other.
>On End Days
We must never speak to simple excitable people about "the Day" without emphasizing again and again the utter impossibility of prediction. We must try to show them that impossibility is an essential part of the doctrine. If you do not believe our Lord's words, why do you believe in his return at all? And if you do believe them must you not put away from you, utterly and forever, any hope of dating that return? His teaching on the subject quite clearly consisted of three propositions:
1. That He will certainly return
2. That we cannot possibly find out when
3. And that therefore we must alway be ready for Him
The point is simple enough. There will be wars and rumours of wars and all kind of catastrophes, as there always are. Things will be , in that sense, normal, the hour before the heavens roll up like a scroll. You cannot guess it. If you could, one chief purpose for which it was foretold would be frustrated. And God's purposes are not so easily frustrated as that.
>Indeed the expectation of finding God by astronautics would be very like trying to verify or falsify the divinity of Christ by taking specimens of his blood or dissecting Him. And in their own way they did both. But they were no wiser than before. What is required is a certain faculty of recognition. If you do not at all know God, of course you will not recognise Him, either in Jesus or in outer space.
>We believe that God forgives us our sins; but also that he will not do so unless we forgive other people their sins against us. There is no doubt about the second part of this statement. We are to forgive them al, however spiteful, however mean, however often they are repeated. If we don't we shall be forgive none of our own.
>This is my endlessly recurrent temptation: to go down to that sea (meeting God) and there neither dive nor swim nor float, but only dabble and splash, careful not to get out of my depth and holding on to the lifeline which connects me with my things temporal.
Our temptation is to look eagerly for the minimum that will be accepted. We are in fact very like honset but reluctant tax payers. We approve of an income tax in principle. We make our returns truthfully. But we dread a rise in tax. We are very careful to pay no more than is necessary. And we hope-we very ardently hope-that after we have paid it there will still be enough to live on.
